


The Best of Us

by Argenteus_Draco



Series: The Stories We Tell [8]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Durin Family, Gen, One Shot Collection, life in erebor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:36:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argenteus_Draco/pseuds/Argenteus_Draco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"'I'm making a gift for your coming bairn,' Fíli clarifies. 'Everyone’s going to give him gifts. Things they make, and some of it will be toys, sure, but you’ll also get clothes and jewels and no small amount of gold. It’s to put away for him, so he never has to go without. Not that we think you’re ever going to be in a position like that, of course. Not with Erebor back.'"</p><p>Fíli finds that life under the Lonely Mountain isn't exactly as easy as he imagined it, and the announcement of his brother's first child only adds to the mess. Part of a collection of short stories exploring the fathers, brothers, leaders and kings that the Sons of Durin could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best of Us

**Author's Note:**

> alternately titled, I'll give you three guesses as to exactly what point the author began to have feelings while last watching Battle of the Five Armies.

The palm-sized ruby was magnificent once, but now it is horribly flawed. No wonder, really, since it had been on him when he'd fallen to the broken rocks at the base of Ravenhill's tower. There are few harder stones in the world, but even a diamond might not have stood up to all the abuse he put it through. As he looks at it in the flickering light of the craft halls, Fíli thinks that he is probably the only Dwarrow in existence to put a jewel so valuable in a pocket and simply forget about it. It was unheard of, absurd, and yet that was exactly what he'd done when Thorin had thrown it to him. He isn’t really sure how it slipped his mind. Maybe because he’s used to the weight of blades in his pockets, and hadn’t thought about what was inside his vest after he’d stuck it there and covered it with chainmail and plate armor. Maybe the search for the Arkenstone had driven away any thought of the more common gem.

He turns it over in his hand, examining a new side of it under the light. It’s chipped and scratched, probably from being battered against his armor over a course of several days, but the biggest problem is the crack running down the middle. That definitely happened when he fell on it. He breathes out a heavy sigh and considers another facet. He hasn’t had a lot of practice in gem-cutting, but he assumes it will be like working any other stone. If he strikes it right, it will split along the crack into two almost-equal halves that he can continue to shape. If he strikes it wrong, it will shatter.

(Bilbo might have had something to say about the poetic irony of his problem, laughed to himself about how Thorin had been similarly cracked, but Fíli is a more practical sort, and not given to that sort of thinking.)

He positions his chisel at the top of the fracture, takes another deep, steadying breath, and brings his hammer down in a swift, sure motion. The chisel hits the flat anvil stone and the force reverberates up his arm. The two halves of the ruby fall away from each other onto the granite surface. Perfect, he thinks.

Now the real work can begin.

 

#

 

He wipes a hand across his forehead, smearing it with soot, and wishes for the thousandth such time that he’d inherited the dark hair and complexion of his surviving kin instead of looking so much more like his father. Kíli can get away with a smudge here and there, but on him and his stubbornly golden hair, it always stands out. 

“Been down at the forges?” Tauriel asks, looking up from her mending as he comes into the communal center of the royal suites. His mother is with her, and Dís clucks disapprovingly before he can answer.

“‘Course he has,” she says, shaking her head. She gives him a critical look as well, and adds, “What are you waiting for? Go and wash. Supper’s nearly ready.”

He rolls his eyes and slouches off in a way to make it seem like a chore, but he’s been in front of the fire for several hours. He wants nothing more than to throw cold water in his face and clean the sweat from his skin.

(What he does not want is a She-Elf sneaking up behind him, but when he looks up at the mirror over the washbasin, that’s exactly what he gets. He jumps.)

“Axe and blood, Tauriel!” he snaps, forgoing a stronger Khuzdul expression because even though she is his brother’s wife, he still doesn’t feel comfortable speaking anything but Westron around her. “Don’t you ever make noise when you move?”

She doesn’t apologize. She doesn’t even bother to look apologetic. “What were you working on today?”

He shrugs and returns to scrubbing soot out of his hairline. “Since when are you so interested in smithing?”

“Since they took me off the guard rotation and I have too much idle time,” she replies. 

He smirks at her in the mirror — she is more than six months with child (and shows it, though not quite so much as a Dwarrowdam) and they have had this discussion many times before — and reaches for a towel to dry his face. “You’re supposed to fill your idle time with crafting. How are those sewing lessons going?”

“Badly,” Tauriel answers, and falls into step with him as he returns to the salon. “Perhaps I shall take up smithing with you.”

“Please don’t,” he says, making a face as he sinks down onto the settee. His mother has also left, presumably to check on the evening stew, so the only thing there is the pile of fabric Tauriel had been attempting to turn into a tiny gown. “You’re not supposed to see it before it’s done.”

She narrows her eyes and cocks her head to the side. “Why?”

“Because it’s a gift.”

She blinks, clearly not understanding. “So you must work on gifts in secret?”

“Certain kinds, yes,” Fíli starts to explain, at the same time that his brother appears in the doorway, and immediately begins to talk over him.

“You’re making a gift?” Kíli shuts the door loudly behind him and raises his eyebrows incredulously. “Tell me we’ve finally found a maid who entices you.”

“A gift for your coming bairn, you idiot.” He rolls his eyes at his brother, and just for good measure, adds, “You should keep your wife better entertained. She’s grating on my nerves and I’ve only been back ten minutes. I can’t imagine how _amad_ ’s been dealing with it all day.”

“Oh, it’s been a trial, to be sure,” Dís calls dryly from the adjoining room, and Tauriel sticks her tongue out at Fíli in a most un-Elf-like fashion, which only causes him to laugh.

“My brother is a bad influence on you,” he says, as Kíli deposits his weapons and coat in their usual places, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter of his own.

“A very bad influence,” Tauriel agrees, and returns her intently curious expression to Fíli. “What gift for a child takes you down to the forges to make it?”

“A sword,” he answers. Then, catching Tauriel’s sudden alarm, adds, “It’s not for him _now_ , it’s for his…” he looks to his brother, floundering for the right word — the right translation, rather, but Kíli is, as usual, no help.

“ _Agbâsh_ ,” Kíli provides, and Fíli pinches the bridge of his nose because the whole point was to _not_ speak Khuzdul in front of an Elf—

“The best translation would be ‘wealth,’” Fíli clarifies. “Everyone’s going to give him gifts. Things they make, and some of it will be toys, sure, but you’ll also get clothes and jewels and no small amount of gold. It’s to put away for him, so he never has to go without. Not that we think you’re ever going to be in a position like that, of course. Not with Erebor back, and you two being a prince and princess. It’s mostly ceremonial.”

Tauriel takes a moment to think over his words, and then says simply, “It sounds like a nice tradition.”

“I always liked it. I still have the gift you gave me, you know,” Kíli adds, directing the last to Fíli and coming to sit beside him.

“You kept it?” Fíli asks, touched but also a little surprised. 

“Sure I did." Kíli picks up the fabric to finish the seam that Tauriel left off. "It's very special to me. Even if it was just a rock.”

“I was five!”

“And I will treasure it always.”

Fíli rolls his eyes and elbows his brother. Tauriel shakes her head and opens her mouth to respond, but Dís calls her in to help her in the kitchen, and she takes herself off as the brothers continue to mock jab at each other. Evenings like this, it’s almost like they never left Ered Luin. But then Thorin comes down, grumbling about the duties of the Kingship, and the banter dies down as Fíli remembers exactly how unprepared he is for this new life they’ve made for themselves.

 

#

 

It takes Fíli a solid three months to craft the sword, and he spends fully half of that time just in sketching and working out the design. He’s made dozens of blades over the years, but this needs to be special, and not simply because it is for his brother’s child. It’s longer than what most Dwarrow favor, because any half-Elf child is probably going to wind up being taller than Kíli, and Kíli is already tall for a Dwarf. He sneaks Tauriel’s daggers down to the craft halls one night when she and Kíli are occupied with each other so that he can study their design, the delicate, curving cutouts that allow it to remain light without sacrificing strength. He even asks Thorin if he can examine Orcist, which gives him the best idea of what proportions will suit a lad or lass of Elvish descent. He gives the blade a straighter, more Dwarven design though, and inscribes the spine with Khuzdul runes. 

He never goes out of his way to show it off, but he doesn’t exactly hide it either, and everyone who sees it makes the same general comments. 

“It’s a masterwork, to be sure.” 

“As good as anything your father ever turned out, lad, and he was the best smith I ever knew.”

“Shame he didn’t have more time to teach you.”

“You’ve got his eye for it.”

“Damn find blade. Damn fine.”

It doesn’t matter what he does when he isn’t in the forges, how many negotiations or afternoon courts he sits in on with Thorin, everyone always seems to see him first as a smith’s son.

 

#

 

He isn't the only one in the crafting halls working on a gift. Depending on the time of day, he’s bound to find at least one of the Company there as well, and usually more. Balin is tooling leather for a book cover. Ori is illustrating the pages that will go inside. Bombur has been assembling an elaborately carved bed frame for when the babe outgrows a cradle, while Gloin and his wife have been making braid beads in a dozen different finishes and set with gems in any color a child might favor. Bifur is carving a small army of wooden soldiers (mostly Dwarrow infantry, but a handful of Elven archers, in deference to the child's mother) and Bofur is making mechanical war mounts for them to ride. Oin, the only one among them who thinks the child might be a girl (he is fascinated by the idea that there is no gender skew among Elves), makes a necklace and set of cuffs that, if it does turn out to be a lad, he can use in turn for courting gifts. Dwalin is also hard at work in the forges, fashioning the first of a pair of hammers, one in steel, and another, smaller version in light wood with a thick quilted padding, since the child will inevitably be swinging it at Kíli. Dori makes a set of ceremonial dress armor, inlaid with silver and gold, and Nori jokes with anyone who will listen not to ask where he came by the precious metals. In fact, Nori has a whole chest full of trinkets that Fíli thinks he probably shouldn't ask about, but he saw Nori crafting the box, so he supposes that it counts. 

The only one who Fíli hasn't seen working on anything is Thorin, but then again, his uncle has more than enough on his plate without having to make a gift for a half-Elvish bairn, the result of a marriage that he still isn’t entirely pleased about. So he's surprised when he enters the forge one afternoon to work and finds Thorin stripped down to shirt and trousers before the fires. He is in the midst of hammering out the beginnings of a red-hot blade of his own, so Fíli waits until the room is done ringing with the piercing tones of steel on steel before he greets him. 

"Those look familiar," he says, smiling when he sees the size and shape on the anvil. Thorin's expression is half-grin, half-growl. 

"I made knives for you and your brother, I'll be damned if being King keeps me from making them for your children, too." He makes one more strike, but the metal’s gone a bit too cool, and he grumbles, "If they're done in time, that is. Tauriel looks like she's ready to drop the bairn any day now. At least I know I'm not the only one still working on a gift.”

Fíli shrugs and sets about laying out his own tools. " _Amad_ thinks so too, but Tauriel keeps saying that Elves carry a full year. So it could be spring before we've got a babe to worry about."

"Or it could be tomorrow." Thorin slides the blade back into the furnace with a sigh and turns to look at Fíli more carefully. "How far along are you with your work?”

"The blade itself is done," he says. "Just finishing the hilt and the guard.”

"We could make them a matching set, if you're amenable," Thorin suggests. "Valar knows I don't have the time to sketch anything out."

Fíli flashes him a grin. "I like that idea. Here, I'll show you what I've been working." He pulls down the wooden box where he's been keeping the work in progress, opens it, and takes the hilt out for Thorin to examine. 

"I took a lot of inspiration from Orcrist," he explains, tracing the settings on the guard where the ruby pieces will go, and the rough shaping that he's already done. "I wanted them to look like dragon's wings. And then the head will snake around here, and the body winds around to the back.”

Thorin nods approvingly and returns to the empty settings. ”Do you have a gem cutter in mind for those?" he asks Fíli. "Sapphires would look quite nice there, and that's a good hard stone."

"I've already got the stones, actually." He tips the ruby pieces out of the velvet purse he'd been keeping them in and hands them to Thorin. They match in shape now, and the worst scratches have been ground away so that all they need is a final, proper polish, but his uncle frowns. 

"Rubies?"

Fíli shrugs, suddenly unsure. Is a red-winged dragon insensitive after Smaug? He'd thought it rather fitting, given the Dwarves' reclaiming of the mountain, but maybe he should have considered the blue Thorin suggested, the color of the line of Durin, and without the ties to that painful part of their past. 

"Where did you find these?"

“I had them,” Fíli answers. “Well, it, I mean. It was one stone originally. And really you’re the one who found it. I just cut it, that's all, and not very expertly.” He doesn't mention any reason other than convenience. If he's honest, he's still a little embarrassed about falling on the damn thing. 

"I thought it felt familiar." Thorin turns the pieces over in his hand, and looks at the hilt again. “I admit, I’m surprised though.”

“Surprised?” Fíli asks. “Why?”

“The first piece of our great treasure that you ever held,” he answers slowly, “and you’re giving it away.”

Memory of the day shoots through Fíli. He remembers Bilbo’s words — _“We all need to leave. It’s this place. I think a sickness lies upon it.”_ — and he remembers Kíli asking _what kind of sickness_ but he’d known, he’d known right away because he’d remembered the stories about Thrór and to hear the same said of Thorin had chilled him to the marrow...

“It doesn’t have meaning for you?” Thorin asks him, bringing him sharply back to the present moment.

“Of course it does,” he replies. “That’s part of why I picked it.”

Thorin considers this for a long moment. He turns back to the forge to take the blade out, but doesn’t strike it. 

“You’re very like your father, you know. Best damn sword-smith I ever met. He could have charged three times what he did for any blade he made, but he didn’t care for wealth. I used to berate him for it, said if he wanted to take care of my sister and raise my nephews he had to do it properly. Thank Mahal he never took it to heart. He’d be proud of you, lad.”

(He remembers his father only vaguely. He’d been twenty-four or so when he died, and eager enough to learn his craft, but eager too to ride ponies and stage mock-battles with Kíli because while he loved his da, he had _idolized_ Thorin, listened raptly to his tales of the lost kingdom and the glory of Erebor and the nobility of the line of Durin, and it was his uncle’s praise he had wanted then, still wanted now—)

Thorin brings the hammer down with a clang like a bell, and it nearly drowns out Fíli’s incredulous, “For choosing a stone I had easy access to?”

The hammer hovers in midair for a moment while Thorin gives him a quick, piecing stare across the anvil… then his face relaxes and he shakes his head and returns to his work. “The pull of the gold—” _clang!_ “—You truly do not feel it—” _clang!_ “—Do you?”

Fíli shakes his head. “I’m sorry to hear the gold-sickness still troubles you,” he replies quietly, reaching again for his own tools. “But glad to know you’re fighting it well enough.”

“Aye,” Thorin murmurs, grabbing a glove so that he can raise and examine the blade. “Kíli and I do alright.”

Fíli goes momentarily stiff at the mention of his brother. “Kíli, too?”

“Kíli, too,” Thorin confirms. He puts the blade down again and gives Fíli a consoling sort of look. “If he hasn’t spoken of it to you already, it’s really not my place to tell. Suffice to say, he has Tauriel, he’ll have his child, and he has you, and that’s where he turns when he feels its influence.”

“Of course,” Fíli mutters, eying the ruby pieces resentfully now. _Of course. Kíli is the princely one. Kíli is the one they all speak of first, while he is only—_

“Fíli.” His uncle is suddenly at his side, a rough hand on his shoulder, and with a flush of shame he realizes that he’d given voice to his thoughts. He looks up, ready to apologize, but the words die on his tongue when he sees the warmth in his uncle’s gaze; it’s a mix of emotions that Fíli doesn’t have time to work out fully, but of all things, part of it is almost relief. 

“Fíli,” Thorin says again, bringing his forehead down to rest against his nephew’s. “My sister-son. You have no reason to doubt yourself. If what you say is true, you will be the best of us.”

 

#

 

Like the Valar had been waiting for some kind of sign, the child is born on a chill night in midwinter, mere hours after Fíli places the completed sword into a velvet lined box, and that box beside its brother, which holds Thorin’s knife. 

Fíli sits in the salon with his uncle. The rest of the company is out in the hall beyond, waiting just like they are for Kíli to emerge and give them news. The door creaks open, and Fíli is on his feet before he’s even conscious of moving— but it isn’t Kíli, it’s Dís, closely followed by Oin, and she shakes her head and smiles fondly when she catches his expression.

“Give them a moment, lad,” she says, accepting a mug of ale from Thorin and taking a grateful swig. “It was a hard labor, but she’s out of danger now, just exhausted. Let them have a few minutes with the little one, and then Kíli will bring him out.”

Fíli nods and starts to sit down again, then stops as his mother’s words fully settle. “Him?”

Dís only smiles at her son over the rim of her mug before she settles down on the settee to talk with Thorin, and Oin goes into the hall to bring the news to the others, leaving Fíli standing there beside them as a wide grin slowly spreads across his face. He’d have loved a girl, of course, but he hadn’t realized how much he had hoped for his brother’s child to be a lad.

It’s a few moments before the door opens again, and Kíli steps carefully into the room, cradling a blanket-wrapped bundle against his chest. He looks at Fíli, and neither says anything for a long moment; then:

“A son.” Kíli sounds rather in a daze, and glances down at the treasure in his arms as if to affirm for himself that what he’s saying is true before he looks up at Fíli again. “I have a son.”

“And I have a nephew,” Fíli replies, suddenly finding that he’s talking past a lump in his throat. He swallows and smiles and holds out his arms, gesturing for Kíli. “May I?”

Kíli hesitates for a moment — understandably — but then he extends his own arms to hand the child to Fíli. The babe squirms a bit during the exchange, but Fíli remembers how to hold a baby from the first time his mother handed him Kíli, and he quickly settles again, allowing Fíli a chance to observe him. He has Kíli’s dark hair, Tauriel’s green eyes, and (Fíli notes with a smirk; he’s won a few bets with this one) ears that come to slight, delicate points. One hand has broken free of the swaddling, and little fingers wrap tightly around Fíli’s when he touches it gently. He smiles, even though there are tears in his eyes. 

“Welcome, my brother’s-son, to Erebor.”


End file.
